― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
I haven't given this serious thought, but on the face of it any political position that gives us a license to treat large segments of the population as objects AND TAKE PRIDE IN IT BECAUSE IT PROVES HOW DOWN AND CONSCIOUS AND SOULFUL WE ARE = dud
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:50 (eighteen years ago) link
and thank god for that. If I was I would have to kill myself to atone for the horrible "Compared to What" Coke commercial atrocity.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 9 June 2005 18:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― markgreen, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
When the "someone you don't intend to have a relationship with" isn't in on the joke, then yes, it is. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that we shouldn't get to pat ourselves on the back when we do it.
When all parties are singing from the same hymnal, it is what it is. Totally agree re: sex sans relationship != de facto assholery.
I have no knowledge of Common's private life or dealings, and he may well be a super up-front, stand-up guy with whom everyone always knows what they're getting.
Nah, not dated (giggles) rings a little macho/creepy to my ear.
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Vestigial Appendages, Esq. (doctorduc...) (webmail), June 9th, 2005 1:09 PM. (King Kobra) (later) (link)
so you can't see why malcolm x would've said with certainty he would never date outside his race?
-- oops
I really hate when people take shit outta context.
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― bob n0pe (bobnope), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link
Having sex with someone you don't intend to have a relationship with is always treating that person like an object?
No, Dan (though I think the question as to whether casual sex relationships are emotionally healthy is at the very least one worth asking), but there's something about saying "persons of this race are not good for relationships" that gives me the creeps. Because of American racial power dynamics, it doesn't work 100% for me to try and flip the script here, but wouldn't it strike you as yucky for, say, Clay Aiken to say: "I'll sleep with black girls, I love them and they're God's children, but I wouldn't have a relationship with one." Maybe that wouldn't make you say to yourself: "That Clay Aiken is one asshole cracker bastard," but it would me.
Perhaps I'll seem less strident if I said: I personally wouldn't sleep with a person if I already knew that I would not, under any circumstances, have a relationship with a person of their particular race. I can see how a justification for doing so might not necessarily be racist ("we're obviously the same species, the parts fit and we can have fun, but culturally we'd be too different to take it any futher than that") but even then I'd find it creepy.
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:08 (eighteen years ago) link
yeah as if it's not TRANSPARENTLY OBVIOUS the "rasta" in common's first paragraph is obviously a POORLY-VEILED SUBSTITUTE FOR COMMON HIMSELF.
― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
seriously
― justsaying, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
he didn't say that.
so basically y'all are just jealous of the pussy common and dead prez get! (this thread is pretty contentious, so i feel the need to point out that that was a joke)
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Lukas (lukas), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:17 (eighteen years ago) link
you don't think he implied that? he: 1) will sleep with white women 2) will not have relationships with them 3) thinks a dread with a white woman in relationship is a "sellout"
seems a fair enough conclusion oops unless you're hellbent on saying "nope! you have to stick to his exact words and not reach any conclusions based on them!"
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link
Considering I thought he was gay, it would strike me more as surprising than yucky, first and foremost.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:22 (eighteen years ago) link
oh god forbid people don't try to read something more into what he said that they have no real evidence supporting! no we must twist it to put him in the worst possible light. that's what celebrities are for, after all!
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Which is clearly what he tried to do, only a couple follow-up questions made him realize he'd opened up a trap he didn't quite have the rhetoric ready to claw his way out of. He tied his own tongue up trying to push the same line about neglected black women and intra-black self-loathing that plenty of people have been pushing for a long, long time.
― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:27 (eighteen years ago) link
(I'm kinda torn on this because I've been in situations where I've been the experiment/behind the scenes girl while/since guys were looking for their parents/friends approved girl -- and that sucked. Just about every time.)
― Candicissima (candicissima), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― dumbest, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Candicissima (candicissima), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― markgreen, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:33 (eighteen years ago) link
Beyond that, I have a problem with anyone who has "gotta stick with yr own" as a central tenet of their personal philosophy, for a number of reasons.
x-x-x-xpost
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Yakuza Ghost Six (nordicskilla), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:34 (eighteen years ago) link
He himself says "its almost a stereotype that if you’ve got dreadlocks you go out with a white girl" -- as if this condition by itself, without knowing the people at all, should make us feel uncomfortable. Paradoxically, he prefaces that statement with an anti-racist statement ("I don’t think there's anything the matter with somebody loving somebody from another race"). Funny, then why mention the "dreadlocks --> white girl" thing at all? It's like he wants it both ways; it seems he's saying there IS something wrong with it, but won't come out and say it (beyond the usual sloganeering of "representing").
Obviously, this is just some dumb interview, and sometimes people have a hard time articulating their thoughts in a comprehensible way, so I'm not necessarily saying that the guy's a racist or a dimwit... But on the other hand, I'm having incredible difficulty in seeing anything rational in what he's saying. It seems like a perspective based on a vague sense of fear and paranoia about what might happen to one's "credibility" and "realness" when he deviates from the socially-mandated behavior of a "conscious and self-aware black man." Whatever that means.
― Vestigial Appendages, Esq. (King Kobra), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.., Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Good lord: surely you guys are familiar with this discussion that he's taking part of? This discussion that's like pretty much central in the lives of newly-educated and newly middle-class blacks or many sorts? And surely you can read well enough to see that he at no point said that he won't date people of other races -- just that he hasn't? Half of his wording is based around the "only" -- i.e., let's not make a practice of "aspiring" to white-dating at the expense of our own.
Which is a problematic thing to say, and doesn't effectively take into account the experience and situations of blacks who find themselves in positions where white people are their peers; you can accuse a lot of people of "only" dating white people when it's really just circumstance, not programmatic. But the strawman he's aiming at here isn't in the least an uncommon or unreasonable one; just a strawman.
― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:36 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:40 (eighteen years ago) link
I dont see whats wrong with the AIDS campaigns. He wants to do something good, good for him. Its not like he's pulling a Bono or something (note: I dont even like the new album)
― deej.., Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― dumbest, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link
If a black man wishes to engage in casual sex with a white woman, he must agree to giggle about it whenever the topic arises.
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link
BN: I don't hate you! I just think you're a menace to rhetoric. (heh)
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:47 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost -- Banana, it's full of weird assumptions about why black people wind up dating white people; it's easy to call blacks (especially successful ones) who date whites "sell-outs," but the fact is that in most cases (especially for young women), certain kinds of "success" mean having fewer and fewer black people in your social circle (not to mention all the middle-class blacks who grew up around white people their whole lives anyway). But really, what's this stuff about "libido calling out?" All he said is that he's slept with white women and presumably women of various races, but that he's only wound up having relationships with black women. Pretending, like the thread title does, that this is programmatic is as bad as the strawman assumption that he's making, which is that black people who mostly date white are being programmatic about it, instead of maybe sometimes just winding up there through neutral circumstance.
― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:48 (eighteen years ago) link
(xpost: Nabisco desperately OTM about the intellectual level of ILX)
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― dumbest, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:53 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost if his dick is just lying somewhere, then that's hardly the point is it?
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:56 (eighteen years ago) link
1. I, Common, am a little unnerved by how common it is for dreadlocked black dudes to have white girlfriends - to the point of this trope being a stereotype. I don't like it.1a. If these guys date exclusively white girls, they are sending a bad message to black women young & old, thereby damaging a community that is already at a disadvantage in many ways.1b. It is my opinion that therefore they shouldn't do this.
2. Mixed relationships are OK by me but I think it's better for black people to love each other.2a. I personally have not had relationships with women of other races, but that doesn't mean I won't toss 'em the ol' hog every now and then.2b. However: "To say ‘I only deal with these type of people’ has gotta be a problem."
3. wtf
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:57 (eighteen years ago) link
I mean, my line: (a) people who date a particular other race in a programmatic way are a bit suspect, but more importantly (see "White Men who Only Date Asian Women" thread); but then also (b) making the assumption that strangers are being programmatic about such things, without concrete evidence, is suspect in a much meaner way.
― nabiscothingy, Thursday, 9 June 2005 20:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Thursday, 9 June 2005 20:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 9 June 2005 20:09 (eighteen years ago) link